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 did myself at this moment. "Come, follow us," cried out the officer; and, to prevent any possibility of escape, he fastened a rope round me. I was instantly conducted to prison, where I had a tolerable bed, on paying for it. I found a numerous and goodly assemblage. "Did I not say so?" cried a soldier of artillery, whom, by his accent, I knew to be a Piedmontese. "We shall have all the camp. Here is another. I will bet my head that he owes his imprisonment to that thief of a quarter-master. Will no one cut that villain's throat!"—"Go, look for him, then, your quarter-master;" interrupted a second prisoner, who also seemed to be a new comer. "Whatever he may have done, he is now at a distance; he has made himself scarce a week since. But, my lads, you must own that he is a crafty chap. In less than three months, forty thousand francs in debt in the city. What a lucky dog! And then how many little boys and girls has he left behind—I should be sorry to rather all his flock. Six young ladies, daughters of our leading burgesses, are in a fair way of becoming mammas! Each thought she had him to herself; but he seems to have cut his heart into small pieces, and shared it amongst them!"—"Oh! yes," said a turnkey, who was preparing my bed, "he has spent like a prodigal, and now must mind what he is about; for, if they catch him, handcuffs are the word. He is marked as a deserter. He will be caught, I think."—"Do not make too sure," I replied; "they will catch him as they caught M. Bertrand."—"Well, suppose he should be taken," resumed the Piedmontese, "would that prevent my being guillotined at Turin? Besides, I repeat it, I will bet my head—"—"What does the fool say about his head?" cried a fourth. "We are here in prison, and as it was to be, what consequence through whose means!" This reasoner was right. It would have been useless to lose oneself in a field of conjectures, and we must all have been blind not to have recognized Hippolyte as the author of our arrest. As for